


The Shadowed Edge

by whitefang (radialarch)



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-07
Updated: 2014-11-07
Packaged: 2018-02-24 10:48:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2578832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radialarch/pseuds/whitefang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the Winter Soldier is a SHIELD agent, and HYDRA and SHIELD really are two sides of the same coin. </p><p>(or, a CA:TWS AU.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Shadowed Edge

**Author's Note:**

> It takes a village to write a fic, sometimes: thank you to Sara, Kora, Jenny, Vee, and Emily for advice I stupidly may not have taken, and to everyone on tumblr & twitter for putting up with my whining.

In the wake of Pierce’s arrest, things got complicated. Agents who’d been with SHIELD for years turned out to be HYDRA. New names drifted into conversations and then left, as the department frantically tried to repair the damage by picking up recruits who weren’t ready.

Steve’s team turned out all right, though, so he’d dodged most of the mess. Maybe that’s why he’d missed the talk at first.

One firefight in Belgium later and Steve’s paying attention, though. In the elevator, he hears STRIKE team members speak of the Winter Soldier in hushed, revering tones. He sometimes picks the name up in Nick’s phone conversations before they’re cut off by his entrance.

All this talk, and Steve still hasn’t seen even a shadow of the man. So yeah, he’s getting a little curious.

———

The day before a scheduled op, Clint catches Steve in the lobby of the Triskelion. “Hey, did you hear? Nat’s not coming with us tomorrow.”

“No Nat? What happened?”

“Something came up in Krakow, she flew out this afternoon,” Clint shrugs. “So we get the Winter Soldier instead.”

“The Winter Soldier?” Steve says, straightening up. “I keep hearing about him.”

“I saw an op he did last year,” Clint says. “He was--” and now Clint’s voice is filled with the admiration of the professional-- “very clean. Almost a pleasure to watch, it was.”

“Oh, yeah?” Steve says, interest piqued. Clint’s not someone whose respect is easy to earn. “I’ll have to see for myself, then.”

———

Steve steps onto the plane looking for the Winter Soldier and is greeted with a ghost. There’s a man leaning on the side of a seat, and the way he’s settled on his feet, coiled tight like he’s ready to throw a punch, is intimately familiar. He remembers, in the muscle of his arms and his fingers, the way he used to commit that figure down to paper time after time.

But this man has a metal arm and a mask over his mouth, and he looks at Steve with blank, blank eyes. The sheer unfamiliarity of the expression is enough to snap Steve out of the thought, and he swallows down the name of his best friend, because Bucky Barnes is dead — has been since 1945.

“Hey, Cap,” Clint calls, striding across the hangar.

Steve is pathetically grateful for the distraction. “Hey,” he turns. “Heard how Nat’s doing?”

“Kicking ass, no doubt.” Clint grins. “Why does she get all the fun stuff?”

“Because they’re not as fun when you’re in the middle of them?” Steve grins.

“You might have a point.”

Their conversation is interrupted when the Winter Soldier crosses the plane towards them. “Why aren’t we leaving?” he asks. His voice is rough and Steve catches a faint hint of a Russian accent.

“We’re just about ready,” Clint assures him. “No worries.”

He nods, slowly, and returns to his position; Steve watches the measured quality of his walk as he goes and tries not to remember.

———

Briefing is quick. It’s a standard sweep, a HYDRA base that’s probably been abandoned. Steve’s fairly sure they’re not going to find any information left behind but it’s best to take care of all loose ends.

“So what do I call you?” Steve asks the Winter Soldier, strapping a comm unit to his wrist.

“Winter Soldier,” he says, expressionless, as he snaps his goggles on.

“Yeah, well, can’t exactly call you that in the heat of battle.” Steve grins a little. “C’mon, you must have a name.”

It’s hard to see what the Winter Soldier is thinking behind his mask. He doesn't answer for a long moment before he says, “James.”

And that’s not — that’s _really_ not fair, that this man can keep stirring up memories of Bucky when Steve’s been trying so hard to forget. He fumbles for his helmet and taps his earpiece.

“All right, James,” he says. The engines are roaring underneath his feet, a familiar sound, and he can do this, just like he’s done it a thousand times before. “Let’s get going.”

———

The base is underground, some sort of concrete bunker with no signs of life. “James, with me,” Steve decides. “Clint, give us ten before you come in behind, we don’t want to be boxed in.”

Clint looks distastefully at the masses of rock surrounding the door. “Yeah, not a great place,” he nods. “Watch yourself, Cap.”

James had come forward to stand by Steve’s side at his gesture, but he stays silent. Steve’s not sure if he appreciates that; it’s a little disconcerting.

The door leads to a hallway, broad but low enough that they both have to duck. There are smaller side tunnels every few feet but the main chambers are probably just straight ahead.

“Trap,” James says suddenly at Steve’s ear. Steve follows his gaze up to a small blinking light nearly hidden under the glow of a sodium bulb and ducks under the beam, marking the wall with his shield as he goes.

“You okay in there?” Clint crackles in his earpiece. “We’re coming in.”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “Watch for the sensor about halfway down.”

“Got it.”

They’re near the end of the hall now. James is reaching for the door handle when he freezes.

“What?” Steve asks, right before something behind them bursts into flames. It shakes the entire hallway, the vibrations rattling through Steve’s chest.

Small chunks of rocks are falling from above, and Steve ducks into a side-tunnel. “Clint, Clint, are you all right?”

“Didn’t catch us,” Clint says, though he sounds shaken. “We might be able to come get you--”

“No,” Steve decides. “You guys retreat, get to safety. We can push through--” a section of the ceiling falls with a loud crash, near enough that it makes Steve jump-- “on second thought, we’ll go through the side tunnels instead, regroup out front.”

“Roger,” Clint says, voice hoarse.

The air’s getting hotter, making it hard to breathe. Steve’s not even sure if the tunnels will lead them out, but they’ve got to move now.

But when Steve turns, the door to the inner chambers are swinging open and James is nowhere in sight. “James!” he shouts, and runs.

He finds James at the back of the chambers, transferring files onto a USB from a workstation. “What are you doing,” he says over the roar of the fire.

“Gathering information,” James says, completely unfazed. “It’s our objective.”

Steve looks back and sees the flames starting to lick at the doors. “We’ve gotta get out,” Steve says, urgent. “We don’t have time.”

“No, not yet.”

“James!”

The computer finally beeps. James grabs the drive and slots it into his metal arm. “Okay, let’s go,” he says, like nothing’s wrong.

They both have to pull back when a six-inch chunk of concrete and rebar crash into the workstation. Steve grabs James’s arm and drags him out of the chambers, grimly hoping that the Winter Soldier’s uniform is fireproof.

He pushes James into a side tunnel and rolls right behind him, the crackle of fire in his ears. The entire base seems to be shaking, and the air’s full of ash and concrete dust.

He looks up. James has streaks of soot on his cheek and there’s the smell of singed hair, but he looks just as blank as he did at the beginning of the mission.

“Right,” Steve says, blindly feeling at the walls. “Let’s get out of here.”

———

Carter’s got a second-degree burn and some of them are still coughing, but at least everyone’s still alive. It doesn’t make Steve feel better at all.

“Why didn’t you follow orders,” Steve demands, pacing the airplane’s length. “You could have died.”

“The mission is what matters,” James says simply. “We were to acquire any information we could from the base.”

“No, it’s not.” Steve shakes his head. “If a mission fails? We move on. But nobody is dying on my watch, not for this.” He closes his eyes briefly. “We’re soldiers, not martyrs.”

James looks at him, but Steve has no idea what he’s thinking behind soot-covered goggles. He doesn’t respond, just stands straight with his spine stiff.

“Don’t do it again,” Steve says at last. He watches James walk away and tries not to think about the last man he lost.

———

Bucky was always saving him. He picked Steve up from the ground when he was wiping at a bleeding nose, and managed to get him medicine in the depths of winter when all Steve could do was cough until there were flecks of red on his palm. After Steve’s ma died, he’d bring over food on days when Steve was feeling hollow, and Steve never knew how Bucky could tell he needed him.

Even after the serum, he’d put Bucky at his six and Bucky remained the same, dropping Nazis with clean head shots before they could get to Steve. Steve would’ve died a thousand times over if it hadn’t been for Bucky, and Bucky managed to do it effortlessly, always grinning at Steve.

But when it mattered, when Bucky had been dangling off a train and reaching out for him, Steve hadn’t been able to save him at all.

———

Intel finally narrows down the location of a HYDRA complex, active and heavily guarded. Natasha’s back from Poland but Nick insists they need more firepower and adds the Winter Soldier onto their team. Steve can’t protest unless he reveals details he’d omitted from his last mission report, so he keeps his mouth shut.

Steve spends far too much of the flight looking at the shape of James’s hands, until Natasha drops into the seat next to him and says, “So what’s the plan?”

Right. They’re only a few minutes from the drop zone; they need a plan. He looks at the blueprints of the compound, looking up to match faces to positions.

“I’ll go in front,” he decides, “Nat, with me. Clint, split up your team, take perimeter. James — give yourself some distance, back me and Nat up.”

Natasha makes a questioning noise, but he ignores her.

James’s expression doesn’t even change. He nods and reaches for a long-range rifle.

———

This time, the compound is a tall building, gleaming steel-and-glass exterior complete with parking lot. The innocuous neatness of it’s enough to nearly make Steve laugh.

He’s not laughing when HYDRA agents start shooting at him even before they get near the front door.

There are enough parked cars that his sightlines are all cut short. He slams an agent into an SUV and then ducks a shot that shatters a windshield and sets car alarms blaring. When he glances under the van, he can see a pair of feet shuffling behind a tire; he sets his shield skimming above asphalt, hitting them cleanly at the ankles.

A sound to his left, and Steve raises his head to find someone just beginning to raise his gun.

Steve is absolutely certain that he’s going to die when the agent drops to the ground with a hole in his forehead.

“What,” he says, scrambling to his feet. When he turns around, he finds James perched in the bed of a truck, reloading his gun.

“Thanks,” he says, and glances around. Nearly everyone’s covered, although Nat’s got an agent on her tail and another to the side. He leaps over the hood of a sedan and goes for the one behind, picking up his shield along the way.

It’s only much later, when Nat’s logging herself into a HYDRA computer, that he lets himself remember a long time ago: Bucky with a rifle, throwing him a salute.

———

James is with him when recon turns into combat in an abandoned field, Austria. Steve dives into the undergrowth and James follows, a solid presence at his side.

“Okay,” Steve says, trying to catch his breath. “I’m going for the agents hiding on our left. You—”

“—cover, then straight to the farm.” James nods. “Go.”

Steve leaps up, his shield spinning out in front of him. Two people go down before he reaches them. He dodges a bullet catches the third across the knees; the man crumples, head slamming into the tree beside him.

It’s over in a flash and when Steve makes his way to the ruined farm James is right at his back, a satisfied gleam behind his goggles.

“Right,” Steve says as they fall easily into step. “That was good.”

“Nothing to it,” James says, already looking around for the next potential threat; but he’s standing very close, and Steve has to try very hard to push away the feeling that there’s a ghost at his side.

———

When Steve enters the office, Nick’s in his chair with his head in his hands.

“Trouble?” he asks.

“There’s always trouble,” Nick says dryly. “Is that your report?”

Steve nods and hands it over. Nick looks at it and then back at Steve, his expression considering.

“How is it, working with the Winter Soldier?” he finally asks.

Steve’s not sure how to respond to that. “He’s good at what he does,” he tries. “Focused.” And he is — not like Steve, whose breath keeps catching when he turns his head during a fight and has to remind himself that those hands on a rifle are not the ones he remembers.

“Good,” Nick says. “I’ve got a job for you two. Pack up, soldier.”

———

The job’s in the Alps, a base with an activity level that's difficult to gauge. SHIELD wants a fly-by, provides them with a sleek little plane with top-of-the-line stealth tech.

James is in the pilot’s seat. They start at the edge of France and head east, away from the sun; Steve, nominally co-pilot, instead watches the play of shadows over James’s knuckles.

In Swiss airspace, they find out that the base is occupied when a streak of blue comes out of the forest to slice into the plane’s wing. James swears and tries to pull the plane up, but it’s already started to go into a spin.

“It’s gone,” Steve says, unbuckling himself with one hand. James tightens his fingers around the controls for a second before he nods.

They’re already at treetop level. They raise up the top, and manage to dive out just before the plane hits the ground. They roll to a stop but it keeps going, a twisted wreck of metal, until it embeds itself into a tree, shuddering.

Steve’s comm is completely smashed. “Do you have anything?” Steve asks. James shakes his head.

Right, then. They’re in the middle of the Alps, completely vulnerable, and nobody’s going to come for them for quite a while.

Steve spins on his feet, trying to find west.

“This way,” James says, at the same time Steve comes to a stop.

“Yeah,” he says, and they head off: Steve taking the front, James wordlessly following.

———

They’re not out of the mountains yet when night falls. They bivouac next to a tall, broad tree. Neither of them’s comfortable with lighting a fire, and, without talking about it, they end up pressed up against each other, Steve’s arm around James’s shoulders.

“I’ll take first watch,” Steve tells James. “Get some rest.”

James looks at Steve and just nods. He stretches, then curls back in on himself, and is asleep in a moment with his head on Steve’s chest.

Steve lets himself lean back into the tree trunk and looks out into the darkness. The cold’s starting to nip at his ears but he’s warm all down his side. James exhales softly behind his mask.

It’s easy to pretend he’s somewhere else, in another forest and another war. They’d done this hundreds of times, him and Bucky — huddled close into each other’s body heat while the cold pressed all around them. But that wouldn’t — he can’t keep doing that, holding onto the memories of Bucky. It’s not fair to him, and it’s not fair to James, either.

He curls his fingers around the metal of James’s shoulder and keeps looking outward.

———

They’d switched watch during the night, and Steve wakes up from a fuzzy, half-remembered dream and realizes too late that he’s hard and rutting against James’s hip. He pushes himself away, his face very hot.

“No need to stop,” James says, a hint of laughter in his voice. And when Steve gathers himself enough to finally look up, he hasn’t moved away. Steve can still see the wrinkles on James’s shirt, where his face had been pressed.

“No,” Steve says hurriedly, “it was just.” He backs away even more, willing himself to calm down. “Let’s not talk about it.”

“All right,” James says, tolerant; but when they start walking again, Steve can feel his stare against his shoulders.

———

They reach a town the next afternoon and manage to call in to SHIELD. They’re waiting for the plane at a small open airfield when James looks at him and says, “Steve,” in a determined voice.

Steve instinctively understands, and he says, “James, we can’t,” not looking up.

“I thought—” James starts, sounding hurt.

“Look, you reminded me of someone else, and I didn’t — don’t want you to get involved with that,” Steve says. “I’m not exactly the model of sanity.”

“No,” James says, but without any harshness to it. “You impose different standards on yourself. You want us to trust each other but you don’t trust yourself. You worry about everyone’s safety except your own.”

Steve flinches. “I already had my psych eval,” he says. “No need to shove my deficiencies in my face.”

“Not deficiencies,” James corrects. He reaches out to touch Steve’s face with his normal hand. “You’re...a good man.”

Steve looks away from James’s gaze, tries for a grin. “I don’t really feel like it.”

They’re standing very close together now. Behind the goggles James’s eyes look very dark, and Steve thinks—maybe—

He raises his metal arm to pull off his mask, and then he’s tipping Steve’s face down to kiss him. Steve’s eyes drift closed; he only opens them again when James steps back and lets his face go.

And then all of Steve’s words stick in his throat as he stares, and it takes him far too long to say, “Bucky?”

Because it’s Bucky’s face underneath the Winter Soldier’s mask — it may be shadowed with stubble and his eyes are blank like Bucky’s has never been, but it’s a face he’s drawn countless times, in waning light and the flicker of campfires, nearly as familiar as his own.

The Winter Soldier looks at him and says, “Who the hell is Bucky?”

———

“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes,” Steve says. There’s a phantom buzz across his mouth that blends into the shaking of the plane. “Bucky, you said, because it fit you better than some dead president’s name. You were born in Brooklyn, 1917, and we’ve known each other all our lives, Buck—”

Bucky shakes his head. “No,” he says, “That can’t be right.”

“Where did you grow up?” Steve presses. “When did you join the army?”

Bucky’s voice is shaking. “I don’t—I’m—”

“You gotta remember,” Steve pleads. “I got beat up every week and you’d try to teach me how to fight—learned how to throw a punch, I did, but it didn’t help—”

“No,” Bucky says vehemently. “Steve, I don’t remember—I don’t remember you.”

And that makes Steve fall back in his seat like nothing else could’ve done, because he’d held onto Bucky’s memory for seventy years, through ice and war, and wouldn’t Bucky have done the same?

But the set of his jaw’s still familiar, like Steve’s seen on Bucky’s face a thousand times before, and they’d fit comfortably into each other’s spaces, had each other’s backs just like old times—

Bucky — James? — carefully puts a hand on Steve’s arm. “I’m sorry,” he says.

Steve laughs, a hollow sound. “Don’t be,” he says. “Must’ve been just my imagination.”

But he doesn’t shake off James’s touch; and James doesn’t withdraw it, either.

———

On the tarmac at D.C., they start walking in opposite directions. Steve tries to resist, but stops and turns anyway. “Hey, James,” he calls, “do you want to—” he shoves his hands in his pockets. “I mean, we could get a drink some time, if you—?”

James’s face is conflicted for a second before it goes blank. “I don’t think that’s possible,” he says. “Right. Okay.” Steve can feel his ears getting hot. “No problem.”

“It’s not—” he opens his mouth, and closes it. “I’m sorry,” he says again, and then he’s striding away.

Steve watches him go.

It’d be easier to keep thinking of him as James; bury Bucky in his mind like he deserves to be and let him rest. But the way James shifts his weight as he walks fits too neatly into his memories, and it won’t let him go.

He squares his shoulders and lifts his head up and makes a decision.

———

Bucky had mostly stopped drinking after Zola.

Oh, he’d gone with the guys when they could, and sat with a glass in his hand; but Steve had watched Bucky -- he couldn’t stop watching him -- laughing and bantering with the best of them, while the alcohol stayed untouched and honey-colored in his grasp.

But there was one night in ‘44, when Dernier had nearly died and Bucky had shot a man point-blank as he stood over Steve, and Bucky had downed drink after drink without even a wince, the blood still stiff in his uniform.

Far into the night, Steve had come and touched Bucky’s shoulder, ready to carry him off; but when Bucky had looked up, he’d slipped off his stool with perfectly smooth motions and his eyes had been clear.

———

The SHIELD computers demand a higher security clearance than Steve’s already got for details about the Winter Soldier, but he does get the location of a warehouse with the note “deep freeze”. Steve memorizes it and wipes his history before he heads off.

He goes tumbling from roof to roof and swings in through a window too high up for people to bother locking. They’ve got a guard out front but nobody inside, and he walks around slowly, trying to get his bearings.

There’s a chair with straps on its arms and something mechanical on top, but mostly the room is oriented toward a stainless steel door, a frosted-over window in its center. Steve peers in and sees —

Bucky? James?

There’s a body on a table. Frost is creeping over the metal arm, half-covering the star on his shoulder, and what skin Steve can see is blue-tinged.

He tries the door and a mechanical voice tells him, “Warning: cryostasis in effect.”

“Cryostasis?” he mutters, rolling the unfamiliar word in his mouth.

He stops by a workstation but he doesn’t have the proper authorization here either, and the computer only beeps at him in warning.

It’s hard for him to leave. He promises himself that he’s going to come back, find out exactly what’s going on.

———

Two years ago, director Alexander Pierce was identified as a sleeper HYDRA agent. It sparked a massive search, the enormous task of rooting out HYDRA affiliates from SHIELD personnel; it took months, and even Steve had to sit through a frosty interview with an external task force.

According to records Steve’s pieced together, the Winter Soldier started working for SHIELD two years ago.

Steve looks down at the paper in his grip, a list of HYDRA projects seized and terminated. He’s suddenly not sure who he’s working for.

———

Something goes wrong in Brussels and suddenly there are hostages. SHIELD gives him Natasha and James and asks for an extraction.

The atmosphere on the plane is very tense: there’s the shuffle of feet and an occasional cough but nobody’s talking very much. Steve tries to focus on the map of the compound, tries to ignore how aware he is of James’s presence, but he can feel eyes on him, even if whenever he looks up James’s head is turned away.

“All right,” he says finally. “I’m going in first, to secure the front. Nat, wait ‘til I call you and come through the back. And Buck—James,” he winces. “You’re with me.”

James tightens his grip on his rifle until his knuckles go white. Natasha looks at him with her eyebrows drawing together.

He ignores them both and gets ready to drop, the wind in his ears.

———

Even with this — _thing_ between them, working with James is easy. When James barks out a warning, Steve drops behind a desk and waits for the familiar sound of the rifle, the thud of a body falling. He runs across the halls of the office building, feeling the stretch in his muscles, but when he looks up from the unconscious bodies around him James is right there at his back. He hasn’t put his mask back on, and the flash of his teeth in triumph makes something leap up hot and bright in Steve’s chest.

When they meet up with Natasha, slipping cat-like through the security system, she throws Steve a hard stare. Steve looks away — looks away from the both of them, trying not to think.

———

“What’s going on, Rogers?” is Natasha’s first question, when they’re back in the States singed round the edges but uninjured. James is already gone — _cryostasis_ , Steve repeats in his mouth, feeling sick — and there’s nobody else who’d raise an eyebrow at the sight of Nat cornering him in a hangar.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, hard. He’s fond of her but he knows her history as well as anyone else; if SHIELD’s adopting HYDRA’s methods Steve’s not sure she’d protest.

“Lying, Rogers.” She crosses her arms. “The Winter Soldier. you called him something else.”

“It was a mistake,” he insists, trying to push past her.

She looks at him steadily, biting her lip. Then she lets out a breath and offers, “I’d heard of him before SHIELD.”

Steve’s head jerks at that. “What do you know?”

She leans forward. “An assassin. Very, very good. The intelligence community credits him for more than a dozen kills. And,” she lowers her voice even further, “he’s been active for the last. Fifty. Years.”

That gets him, and from her satisfied smile Steve can see that she’s picked it up.

“All right,” he gives in. “What do you know about cryostasis?”

“Cryo?” She shrugs. “HYDRA used it for some of their most elite agents. Nobody’s using it nowadays.”

“Wrong,” Steve tells her, his tone flat.

She straightens her shoulders. “What exactly are you saying?”

He looks at her, and she meets his eyes head-on. He lets out a breath and says, “I think there’s something wrong when SHIELD is keeping operatives frozen between missions.”

Natasha’s shaking her head. “No. Fury wouldn’t.”

“Maybe not two years ago,” Steve says. “I don’t think we know what SHIELD is now.”

“Opportunity,” Natasha mutters, and her eyes are wide with sudden comprehension. “Steve,” she says rapidly, “do you trust me?”

Steve looks at her; he remembers her history, bleeding red across the map, but he also knows the way it feels to have her at his back. He looks at her and he nods, slow.

She pulls back. “I’m going to pull some strings, then,” she says, her posture very straight. “What did you call him?” she asks, turning away. “Before.”

“Bucky.” Steve clears his throat. “He was my best friend.”

———

There must have been a time when Steve hadn’t known Bucky: not known by heart the dips of his voice or the hard, broad lines of his body. But that point is so far back in his memory, as far back as Steve’s own sense of self, that it’s almost as if Bucky has always been a part of him.

Steve doesn’t know if it’d be better, or worse, to remember that precise point that divides his life into “before Bucky” and “after”. Because that’d mean that somewhere in time, there’s a Bucky who doesn’t know him.

———

It takes two weeks for Natasha to get back to him. “Here,” she says, holding up a folder. “It’s what I could find on the Winter Soldier.”

Clipped at the very top is a photo, and Steve slides down to the ground. Here’s final proof that it’s Bucky: he’s got two whole arms and his eyes are open but unfocused. “Zola’s lab,” he mutters, and aches because he didn’t get there fast enough after all — he couldn’t save Bucky after all, _didn’t_ save him.

There are pages of brain scans, lit up and shadowed in baffling patterns; notes about reactions to cryostasis. He’s not “Bucky” in these notes — the subject, or the asset, but never, ever, _Bucky_.

Here’s what HYDRA did: they wiped Bucky’s mind clean and broke him, built him back up into a weapon.

And then SHIELD took Bucky over and used him in the exact same way.

“This can’t — we can’t let them do this,” Steve says. “This is wrong.”

“It’s a world of hard choices,” Natasha mutters, but she’s looking over his shoulder at the file, too, slowly shaking her head.

“I have to save him.” Steve gets up. “Get him away from here.” He looks at Natasha, daring her to stop him.

She smiles — an expression that’s thin and brief and a little bitter. “It’s been a while since I did a good deed,” she says. “Lead on, Rogers.”

———

The cryostasis code is in the file. It takes Steve three tries to punch it in because he can’t hold his hand steady.

The pink comes back to Bucky’s skin slowly. Steve doesn’t know how long it takes for Bucky’s eyes to open, but he sits by the table, keeps a hand on Bucky’s shoulder and helps him off when Bucky starts to move.

“Steve,” Bucky says in muted surprise, when his breathing evens out. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Listen,” Steve says. Natasha’s outside keeping guard but he keeps his voice low anyway. “You said you weren’t Bucky. Before.”

Bucky flinches when Steve says his name, and he’s already shaking his head. “I’m not,” he says, his eyes darting sideways.

“Then why are you so afraid?” Steve asks. “What does it mean to you?”

Bucky stares at him without speaking, and then he’s falling to his knees, his hands on his head. Steve follows him down, pulls him close by the shoulders.

“I keep thinking—I don’t know,” he’s saying. His voice is trembling, and for the first time since Steve’s met the Winter Soldier, there's a faint hint of Brooklyn in it. “ _I don’t know who I am_.”

“Let me help you,” Steve pleads, touching his forehead to Bucky’s; and after a moment, Bucky nods.

———

“Hold out your right arm,” Steve instructs. “Nat said they put a tracker in you.”

“I know,” Bucky says. He impassively taps his forearm and just looks at Steve.

“We’re—we’re going to have to take it out,” Steve says, wincing. “I’m sorry—”

Bucky shrugs. He pulls a knife from his belt, and before Steve can react he’s pressing it to his skin, making a clean, neat slice.

“Bucky!”

Bucky hasn’t even made a sound, just clenched his teeth together and pressed his thumb and forefinger into the cut. His expression is pained but he just grunts, and then he’s pulling up, something black and round emerging from his skin, slick with blood.

He holds it out for Steve; it takes him a second to take it and slip it into a plastic bag for Natasha to take care of. Bucky’s bleeding onto his knee but he doesn’t seem to care.

Steve wants to bury his face in his hands; but Bucky’s looking at him, and even if he feels sick this isn’t the time for him to be weak. So he shakes his head and bandages up Bucky’s arm, and doesn’t talk until there’s nothing else for him to do.

“Thank you, Buck,” he says. “Let’s go.”

———

“Where are we going?” Bucky asks. The bulky sweatshirt they’d gotten him is hiding his arm, but he keeps uneasily pulling at its neck.

“He’s got a point,” Nat says. “I think we’re technically fugitives.”

“We?” Steve jerks in surprise.

“Well, I’m not going to leave you _now_ ,” she says. “Haven’t had this much fun in months.”

“Thanks, Nat.” He says it as sincerely as he can. He knows what it means to have the loyalty of someone like her, and he’s not sure what he’s done to deserve it.

She smiles briefly and then shakes it off. “So, nowhere SHIELD, nowhere remotely connected to SHIELD — I don’t suppose you’ve been out cultivating friendships with your neighbors, have you, Rogers?”

“Actually,” he says, surprising even himself. “I have. Kind of.”

———

Sam opens the door, stares at the three of them, and then says, “Hey.”

“Running buddy, huh?” Natasha says.

“Hey, Sam,” Steve says, shuffling his feet. “We need a place to lay low for a bit, and I couldn’t think of anyone else—”

But Sam’s already stepping back, waving them in. “Geez, what have y’all been doing?”

“Rebelling against a big bad government organization,” Natasha says easily. “What’s your wifi password?”

———

“Hold on, I thought SHIELD was the good guys,” Sam says. “I mean, I remember when the HYDRA thing came out, but you guys got rid of them, right?”

Steve doesn’t know how to answer that, because he’d thought so, too. He knows the history of SHIELD, Peggy and Howard and Colonel Phillips striving to protect something they thought worth protecting. He’d thought that somehow, their ideals would always stand firm at the base of it all. He shifts closer to Bucky and takes his hand, trying to ground himself.

Natasha finds it easier to form an answer. “When you’re trying to save an entire country,” she says quietly, “it’s really easy to forget to save it from yourself.”

They stay there for a moment, digesting that; and then Sam nods at Bucky and asks, “Is that guy sleeping?”

———

“Stop worrying,” Natasha tells Steve. “It makes sense — he’s been through a lot of stress, he’s allowed to be tired.”

They’d wrestled Bucky into Sam’s spare bedroom, and Bucky’s sprawled under a blanket now, his face half-buried into a pillow. Steve looks at his sleeping form and it’s like he’s looking through some sort of film, of the thousands of times he’s seen Bucky, vulnerable, just like this.

“I know,” he gives her a half-hearted grin. “I’m just.” He sighs. “I don’t know.”

“Yeah, you big softie.” She pats him on the shoulder. “Stay here and watch him, then. I’ve got some work to do.”

She closes the bedroom door behind her. Steve waits for a moment for her footsteps to fade, then climbs into the bed.

It’s easier to stop feeling anxious when he can feel Bucky, warm under his hands. He wraps his arms around Bucky’s shoulders and pulls him tight to his chest.

———

Steve wakes up when something hard crashes into his ribs. He gasps and blinks his eyes open and it’s Bucky filling his vision, lashing out with both arms.

“Bucky,” he shouts, “Bucky, it’s okay, it’s okay.”

Bucky gives another thrash and then they’re both sliding to the floor in a tangle of blankets. Bucky lets out a pained grunt and his eyes blink open.

“Steve?” he says, voice thick with sleep.

“Yeah, Buck, it’s me,” Steve says. “You’re safe, it’s okay. Stay with me, buddy.”

And it takes a while, but Bucky’s breathing slows down, bit by bit, and his tense muscles loosen against Steve’s body.

“I thought—” he finally says, “I thought they’d taken me back.”

Steve tugs Bucky even closer, pressing his forehead in between Bucky’s shoulderblades. “They won’t,” he says, and he’s faintly surprised by how hot the words come out. “Not as long as I’m alive.”

———

“What do you remember?” Steve says finally. They’re still on the floor and Steve’s right arm’s beginning to go numb, but Bucky hasn’t tried to move and Steve wouldn’t disturb him for anything.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Just. Flashes.” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Oh,” Steve says. “But you—do you remember being Bucky?”

Bucky stays quiet for so long that Steve’s heart sinks, wondering if that was a wrong question. But then Bucky says, “It feels right.” He shifts. “When you call me that.”

“Oh.” Steve says. He can’t stop the smile from curving his mouth and Bucky’s warm hand is sliding over his fingers. “Good.”

———

When the two of them finally shuffle into the kitchen, Sam waves a spatula at them from the stove. “Pancakes?”

“They’re really good,” Natasha mumbles.

“Yeah, all right,” Steve says.

The pancakes _are_ really good. Steve finishes off his plate with appreciative sounds while Sam grins, then keeps one eye on Bucky who’s taking slow, careful.

“So,” Natasha says. “I had a hunch. Followed up on it.”

Sam leans forward. “Turns out you guys didn’t do such a good job cleaning up HYDRA after all.”

“Are there personnel—”

“Not the people,” Nat clarifies, turning around Sam’s laptop so Steve can take a look. “But I guess someone high up thought: why not use some of the tech? Or their methods?”

“Like Bucky,” Steve says, feeling sick. “They _used_ him.”

They all look at Bucky at that. Bucky looks back, still chewing. “I’m a big boy,” he waves his fork. “Keep talking.”

“The biggest problem I can find is this, Project Insight.”

Steve squints at the screen. “Three helicarriers, GPS linked. Yeah?”

“Keep reading,” Sam says, grim.

“Weaponized. Self-sustaining flight.” Steve frowns. “Hang on, preemptive strikes?”

Sam nods and spreads out his arms. “Welcome to our new police state.”

“SHIELD can’t have possibly—” Steve starts, but Natasha points, and there it is: authorized, Fury, Nicholas J.

“I thought he was better than this,” Natasha says quietly.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says, because there’s nothing else he can say.

———

Steve vetoes Natasha’s plan for subtle sabotage. “Insight isn’t the problem, it’s a symptom,” he points out. “We bring down a helicarrier, they rebuild it. As long as SHIELD stands, we’re leaving the way wide open for this to happen again.”

“I’m with Cap.” Sam hooks a thumb at Steve. “If this is HYDRA 2.0, I don’t think we really wanna go for ‘subtle’.”

“Big and flashy, huh?” Natasha says. Then she smiles, an expression that makes Steve shiver. “Oh yeah, I think we can do that.”

———

Natasha’s plan is breathtakingly simple: decrypt the details of Project Insight, then upload the whole thing to the internet.

“We should do it in the afternoon,” she says. “Gives the papers some time to write their front page articles, plus the evening blogs’ll have a field day.”

“It’s not going to compromise any field agents, will it?” Steve asks, biting his lip. “We have to be responsible about this.”

“Relax.” She pats his hand. “I’ll leave out crew details, it’s mostly specs and programming.”

“So how soon can we do this?” Sam asks. “Insight’s due to launch in a few days.”

“Not that long, I hope,” Natasha shrugs and rubs her hands together. “Now shut up and let me work.”

———

After working all morning, Natasha gets twitchy and decides to go out for recon with Sam. “You stay here,” she rolls her eyes when Steve protests. “Take care of your friend.”

Steve’s not sure how. Bucky spends the afternoon reading about himself on the internet, but Steve can’t tell if it’s helping. The more he reads the tighter his jaw gets, and there’s no light of recognition in his eyes.

Sometimes Bucky will ask him a question, and Steve gets to talk about his bright-colored memories: the way Bucky’d taught him how to throw a punch, to drop his weight low and use his whole body; the first time Bucky came over with a bottle in his coat and they spent the evening on the fire escape, trading sips of alcohol and laughing as the sun went down. He can’t help smiling as he talks and Bucky smiles back, but there’s uncertainty to the curve of his mouth, and it makes Steve’s heart drop.

Otherwise, it’s silent, just the click of the keyboard and an occasional cough. Steve sits next to Bucky on the sofa and leans against his shoulder because he needs that: to feel Bucky against him and know that he’s here.

“They keep saying I was a hero,” Bucky says eventually, closing Sam’s laptop. “But I—I don’t feel like it.”

“I don’t think any of us did,” Steve says, closing his eyes. “It’s funny, they say that and sometimes I think it just means we managed not to die.”

There’s a light touch at his knee, Bucky’s hand tentatively settling down. Steve presses his own hand on top of Bucky’s and they stay like that, for a long time.

———

That night, Bucky’s already in bed and Steve hesitates at the doorway. It’s not right, the way he keeps needing to touch, when he and Bucky hadn’t ever been—

But then Bucky says, “What are you waiting for, dumbass,” soft and sleepy, and the familiarity of it brings a wide grin to Steve’s face.

Steve gets into bed and Bucky pulls Steve’s arms around his middle. Steve buries his nose in the nape of Bucky’s neck and breathes, reminds himself that Bucky is right here.

———

He and Bucky had shared beds during cold New York winters, slept in the same cot in Italy and shoved bedrolls together across France and Austria. He’d press his back to Bucky’s chest, let Bucky bury his cold nose in the nape of his neck and wrap his arms around his shoulders.

Even after the serum, when Steve had grown taller and broader, he’d never suggested they switch places. It was a little too much like giving himself permission, and he needed to remember that he couldn’t, shouldn’t touch Bucky like he wanted to.

———

Steve wakes up because Bucky is kissing him.

“Bucky?” he mumbles against Bucky’s mouth, blinking awake.

Bucky doesn’t say anything when he pulls back. His mouth is red and wet and he grins at Steve, cocky and reckless like the way he used to grin before every op, before dipping down to kiss him again.

“Bucky, you’re not—we can’t—”

“You’re thinking too hard, Steve,” Bucky says, and the way he says _Steve_ is pure Brooklyn. “You want this. I want this.” He rolls his hips against Steve’s, and Steve lets out a gasp, because Bucky is hard against him and he _does_ want this; he’s wanted it silently touching himself in Brooklyn with guilty hands, and he’s wanted it cold and freezing in Europe, and he wants it now, with Bucky looking at him with an unbearably familiar look in his eyes.

“Bucky,” he says helplessly, “it’s you,” and then he’s touching him: his chest, the rounded muscle of one shoulder and the metal of the other, the points of his hipbone as Bucky grinds into him.

“Yeah, that’s it, Steve,” Bucky says, encouraging. His hands are undoing the zip of Steve’s pants, pushing them down his thighs. “Come on, fuck me.”

He shucks his own pants and underwear easily, looks over his shoulder at Steve like an invitation, and when Steve works up the courage to press a finger into him Bucky’s already slick and ready.

“Jesus, Buck.” The words burst out of him, as he imagines Bucky in the bathroom, pressing his fingers inside him to prepare for this — for _Steve_. It takes his breath away and he’s harder than ever, and Bucky just jerks his head impatiently at him.

Steve’s hands are shaking as he tries to guide himself into Bucky, and then he’s finally inside; Bucky is hot and tight around his cock, and Steve’s breaths are coming short and fast.

“Bucky,” he chokes out, his fingers splayed over Bucky’s hips, before he starts to move.

A small noise slips out of Bucky’s throat when Steve brings one hand around to wrap around Bucky’s cock. “Christ, Steve,” he babbles, “that’s it, you feel so good.”

Steve has to press his mouth onto Bucky’s skin to stop all the undignified sounds trying to bubble out of him, and Bucky is moving under him, his own hand joining Steve’s on his cock. Then he tightens around Steve, spilling wet over their hands, and Steve gasps — bites down on the curve of Bucky’s neck, and comes.

———

Afterwards, there’s a buzzing all throughout Steve’s body and his mouth goes soft when he looks at Bucky, but Bucky’s tensed up and hunched into himself.

“What’s wrong?” Steve asks, trying to gather Bucky into his arms, but Bucky shakes him off.

Bucky doesn’t say anything as Steve noses at his back. And then finally, he rasps out, “I thought I’d remember,” and the Russian is back in his words

Something cold closes around Steve’s heart. “I thought you did,” he says. “You said my name and I thought—”

“I wanted it,” Bucky says. “I wanted it and you kept touching me and I thought—maybe if you fucked me, I’d—”

“Bucky,” Steve sits up, and he lets go of Bucky completely. “We weren’t—we weren’t.”

“Oh,” Bucky says, very softly.

“Oh my god,” Steve says. he gets out of bed, sits on the floor and puts his face in his hands. “I didn’t—oh god, I’m so sorry—”

“Don’t be _sorry_ ,” Bucky spits out. “I did want it. I just didn’t know—”

“But you thought—I shouldn’t have done it, I shouldn’t have touched you. I just needed to make sure you were real, you weren’t leaving—”

“Dammit, I’m not a child,” Bucky snaps. “I could’ve told you to stop, couldn’t I?”

But Steve’s shaking, and it’s his fault, for wanting too badly. If he’d stopped himself — if he hadn’t convinced himself that Bucky had come back to him—

“I’m sorry,” he repeats miserably, and he can’t even look up. He pulls on his clothes and he leaves, and Bucky doesn’t tell him to stop.

———

Breakfast is quiet. Steve stares mostly at down and pushes around his eggs on the plate. He can feel Bucky staring at him over his orange juice.

Natasha doesn’t say much either, listlessly tapping her fingers on the table, until she sighs and asks, “Do you think we’re doing the right thing?”

Steve and Sam both look at her. “What’s going on?” Sam asks. “Thought you were nearly finished with the decryption.”

“Yeah.” She puts her toast down. “Look, Fury—he’s done a lot for me,” she says. “I don’t know about leaving him out in the cold like this.”

“You know what?” Steve says, trying to sound much more confident than he feels. “Why don’t we give him a call?”

———

Natasha sets up the link. “It won’t stop them tracking us, but hopefully it’ll buy us some time,” she explains as the phone starts ringing.

“Nervous?” Steve asks. Her face is pale and she won’t stay still on her feet.

“Shut up, Rogers,” she says, but she gives him a weak grin anyway.

The call goes through and both of them fall silent instinctively.

“Director Fury,” comes the voice from the phone.

Steve looks at Natasha but she looks frozen. “Hello, Nick,” he says instead, trying to sound casual.

There’s a pause. Steve can imagine the uproar, Nick underscoring orders with his hands and tech scrambling to set up a trace.

“This doesn’t have to be hard, Cap,” Nick finally says. “We can talk about this.”

“I don’t think so.” Steve lets out a laugh. “I know what you’ve been doing, Nick. Cryostasis?”

“The Winter Soldier has saved thousands of lives.” Nick’s voice is hard. “I do not need to justify myself to you, Captain.”

“His name is Bucky,” Steve says forcefully. “Sergeant Bucky Barnes, of the 107th infantry. Did you know that?”

When Nick speaks again it’s in a slightly subdued voice. “I—” he sighs. “No, I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

“But see, that’s not the issue here, Nick.” And Steve is genuinely angry now — that Nick still doesn’t understand, that freedom’s not a choice you can make for other people. “The issue is that you think it’s okay to keep a nameless soldier in storage like—like a tool because he’s _useful_.”

“We all have to make sacrifices,” Nick shoots back. “I thought you would know that better than most.”

Steve closes his eyes.

“Oh, so Project Insight, I guess that’s a sacrifice, too?” Natasha finally breaks in. “Would’ve been nice if someone told me about it first.”

“Romanov!” Nick’s voice wavers.

“Hey, Nick,” she says with a hint of irony. “You told me you trusted me to do the right thing, once.”

“I _am_ doing the right thing,” Nick says, and there’s no doubt in his words. “Everything I’ve ever done, it’s been to save lives. Natasha, do you understand?”

“Yeah, Nick, I do,” and Natasha raises her head high. “I guess I’m just not sure if I want to be saved by you anymore.”

She hits _end_ and lets out a shaky breath.

“You okay?” Steve asks quietly.

“Yeah,” she says like that’s obvious. “Don’t worry about me, we’ve got bigger things to do.”

———

Steve’s been doing his best to avoid Bucky, as much as the space of Sam’s house allows. But in the afternoon, he finds Bucky sitting on the bathroom floor, staring at his hands, and he looks so lost that Steve can’t bear to walk away.

“Bucky,” he says, lowering himself onto the tiles. He wants desperately to take Bucky’s hands but he curls his own into the fabric of his jeans instead. “What’s going on?”

“The man on the phone,” Bucky says, unblinking. “He said I saved lives.”

Nick _had_ said that; and what Nick did sits wrong in every fiber of Steve’s being, but he thinks about Bucky picking him off bloody asphalt and still like a statue over a rifle, thinks about HYDRA agents dropping clean, and tells him, “You did,” like the truth it is.

Bucky flexes his fingers, flesh and metal. “I don’t remember that,” he says, very low. “I remember pulling the trigger.”

“Sometimes that’s all the choice that’s left,” Steve says. “Bucky. We were soldiers.”

“ _No_ ,” Bucky says, looking at Steve with wild eyes. “You were a soldier; I was a weapon.” He makes a fist and watches the light reflecting off it. “I remember — I _remember_ , and it wasn’t war, it was—” a noise grinds out of his throat. “It was murder.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Steve says, “none of it was _your fault_ ,” and he wants, needs Bucky to believe him, but Bucky’s pushing himself up, one hand on the doorknob

“Who did I save?” he says bitterly. “How could I save anyone?”

“You saved me,” Steve says as Bucky leaves, but he’s not sure if he hears it.

———

“C’mon, Cap, Nat’s finished,” Sam’s shouting. Then he finds Steve, looks at his face and asks more softly, “You okay?”

Steve looks up, tries to shake away all his thoughts. “Yeah, don’t worry. Where is she?”

Natasha’s in the living room throwing back a beer. “You know, they have this thing called ‘high-speed internet’ now,” she tells Sam with a grin. “And then maybe it’d take less than a decade to upload this thing.”

“Well, excuse me,” Sam drawls. “Sorry my house isn’t equipped for top secret espionage jobs.”

They’re giving each other high fives when the laptop starts beeping.

“Shit,” Natasha says and drops to peer at the screen, all laughter forgotten.

“I thought you knew how to bypass SHIELD security,” Steve says. He tries very hard not to sound accusatory, but from Sam’s look that’s not quite working out.

“I did,” she snaps. “This is different — and weird, it looks really old—” Then her face goes white and her fingers are flying over the keyboard. “It’s going to launch the helicarriers.”

“What?”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” And that’s Sam, his voice low and reasonable. “Why would SHIELD want to launch—”

“It’s not SHIELD,” Natasha says, rapid. “It’s a HYDRA failsafe, must’ve been hidden in the programming.” She distractedly pushes the hair out of her face, and then she’s talking again. “In case of total security breach — yeah, that’d be us — it’s supposed to launch Insight early.”

Steve has the feeling he knows the answer, but he asks anyway. “What was HYDRA planning to do with Insight?”

Natasha looks straight at him. “To eliminate all possible threats.”

———

“We have to take out those helicarriers now,” Steve snaps. “How long ‘til they go in the air?”

“Less than an hour,” Natasha says, tense.

“Right. Hopefully there won’t be much crew there. Aim for minimum casualties, please, that’s not our goal.” He shoulders his shield, and the familiar weight steadies him a little.

“Always, Rogers.”

“Hang on,” Sam says. “You guys don’t think you’re going by yourself.”

“I want in,” says a raspy voice, and Steve hadn’t even realized Bucky was here.

“You can’t,” Steve says immediately. “Bucky, you still haven’t got yourself back.”

“I remember enough,” he insists, his jaw set firm. “I’m coming.”

“Sam, please.” Steve turns. “This isn’t your fight, and Bucky can’t — stay here, take care of him.”

Sam hesitates, turning to look at Bucky, and Steve takes the opportunity to slip out. Natasha follows him like a shadow.

———

“So, just you and me, Rogers,” Natasha says. “Missed it?”

“Always, Nat,” Steve tries to grin. “So, you got any ideas how to take down some helicarriers?”

“I can link the three nav systems from the control booth,” she says. “But somebody’s gonna need to be actually on one of those to bring it down.”

“Sure, no problem,” Steve shrugs.

Natasha gives him a narrow look. “Aim for the Potomac, and go low,” she advises. “And don’t be stupid, Rogers.”

“I’m never stupid,” he tells her. “All right, let’s do this thing.”

———

They have to knock out two SHIELD agents to get into the hangar bay, and inside people are swarming everywhere.

“So much for no crew,” Natasha says in a low voice before she flips into a knot of techs. Steve stifles a laugh and then he’s fighting, too, aiming for clean hits that knock them unconscious.

He fights his way toward a helicarrier that’s nearly off the ground, dives under an agent shooting at him to knock at his legs, and then he’s rolled inside the doors and the floor is vibrating underneath him.

“Stop right there,” a voice says. Steve looks up to see someone young and white-faced shakily pointing a gun at him.

“Sorry,” Steve says, and he’s entirely sincere. “But I need to do this.”

The first shot goes over his head; Steve ducks and leaps forward, aiming for the gun. The second shot sends a bullet grazing along his forearm but then he’s got the man’s wrist in his grasp, and he twists.

The gun clatters on the steel floor, and Steve follows through, pressing the man through the door of the carrier and then slamming it shut.

“Okay, I’m in,” Steve pants into his radio. “Natasha?”

“About time,” she crackles into his ear. “The bay doors are opening. I hope you know how to steer one of these babies.”

“Well, you know. Once you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all.” Steve looks down at the control panel blinking ominously at him and grabs the steering column.

“Okay, now the helicarrier’s gonna try to lock onto its course, so you’ve gotta fight it. Just think of it as wrestling a big...cat.”

“Really,” Steve says, and he can already feel the steering go stiff and unresponsive beneath his hands. “Thanks for that.”

He locks his elbow and pulls as hard as he can, and the helicarrier wobbles to the side. Out the window he can see the glitter of the river, and he aims in that direction, even as the carrier tries to shoot up.

“Not gonna happen,” he mutters. “Nat, where are the other carriers?”

“Right on your tail like ducklings,” the reply comes back immediately. “Remember, shallow into the river, and then get the hell out.”

Just then they hit an air pocket, and the entire carrier _rolls_. Steve loses grip of the column and slides across the floor, the air whooshing out of his lungs. He gets to his knees and crawls back over, grasps it just as the carrier shudders violently.

“Steve, are you okay?” Natasha is frantic in his ear. “The second helicarrier clipped your wing and is headed for the rotors on your left. You lose that and steering’s gonna be damn near impossible, get out, get out!”

“Not just yet,” Steve grunts. He tugs at the control column again, feeling the strain in his muscles, but very slowly they drift downwards, down toward the river—

There’s a _crash_ , and then the aircraft is spinning out. Steve’s thrown into the wall, his shoulder taking the brunt of the impact, and he’s about to stagger up when the metal starts to crumple with a shrill noise.

Something’s crushing his thigh and there’s pain in his side, in his arms, on his tongue where he’s bitten it. Water starts lapping at his hair, in his ears, over his eyes—

———

For Steve, walking into Zola’s lab hadn’t been bravery. It had been a selfish and cowardly thing, risking a life that belonged to the United States government, but he’d done it because the war didn’t matter to him as much as Bucky did. If he hadn’t, a part of him would have always wondered if he could have saved Bucky.

If he hadn’t, a part of him would have fiercely, viciously hated himself for the rest of his life, and he would have deserved it.

———

There’s a burning pain in Steve’s chest. He tries to cough, but all he can do is make a strangled noise, and then he’s rolling to his side, vomiting up murky water. He’s got a splitting headache and his vision is fuzzy at the edges.

But he’s alive, hands sinking into soft mud on the bank of the Potomac, and someone is next to him putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Steve,” Bucky says, like he used to when it was deep summer in Brooklyn and something had set off Steve’s asthma. “Steve, c’mon, talk to me, pal.”

He coughs the last of the water out of his lungs, takes deep gasping breaths. “Bucky?” he splutters out, trying to rise up onto his elbows. “How did you—what are you doing here?”

“Oh, thank god,” Bucky says in relief, and then there’s a sharp smack to the back of his head.

“Ow!” Steve’s ears are ringing. He gingerly tilts his head up, blinking fast.

“You,” Bucky points a finger at him. “Steve Rogers, you are stupid, and ridiculous, and I don’t even know what I saw in you, because how could you — you left me behind, jerk, and that’s not—”

Bucky takes Steve by the shoulders and wrenches him to a sitting position, before throwing his arms around him hard enough to make Steve gasp.

“Bucky—”

“What were you gonna do, huh?” Bucky says into the crook of Steve’s neck. “Die on me?”

“I’m sorry,” Steve tells him. “I didn’t know if you—”

“I told you I remembered enough,” Bucky says stubbornly. “I don’t have to know everything — but you can’t leave me like that, you _can’t_. I need you, I’ve always needed you.”

“Bucky,” Steve says, and finally lets himself relax into the circle of Bucky’s arms. “It’s really you.”

“The one and only,” Bucky says wetly. “And a good thing, too, because who else would keep saving your dumb ass?”

Steve laughs, even though it comes out more like a sob. He’s soaked to the skin and the evening wind is starting to rise up, but Bucky’s body is hot like a furnace against him.

“I’m sorry I didn’t take you with me,” Steve says, trying to get his tired tongue to form the right sounds. “I didn’t want you in danger.”

“That’s not a choice you can make,” Bucky tells him firmly. “You go, and I’m coming after you, no matter what.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Steve laughs suddenly. “How did you even get here?”

“Sam.” Bucky waves a hand up, the metal glinting in the setting sun. “Turns out he wasn’t too keen on you leaving him behind, either. So I got him his wings.”

“Sam?” Steve squints up at a figure outlined against a cloud, gleefully soaring up; sighs and lets his head drop onto Bucky’s shoulder. “I thought he was a _pilot_.”

And then Bucky’s laughing, like they’re both seventeen again, the twin buzz of alcohol and dancing bubbling through their blood; like no matter what’s happened, all Bucky needs to do is grin and toss an arm around Steve’s shoulders and they can go home, together.

———

It takes months for the inquiries to finish. Steve has to testify at the Hill more times than he cares to count, dodging both cameras and pointed questions; but he’s always known what he’s fighting for, and in the end SHIELD is deemed too powerful, too dangerous. Wrong.

“So looks like you’ve run out of things to fight, Cap,” Natasha says, sprawled over Sam’s sofa. “Disappointed?”

“Well.” Steve looks down. “It’s good to have some rest now and then, don’t you think?”

Natasha laughs. “Maybe.”

“Get off the radar for a while,” Sam suggests. “No aliens. No spies. Do something fun for once.”

Natasha looks at Sam. “Yeah,” she says thoughtfully. “You know what, maybe I will.”

———

Steve goes back to his apartment in Brooklyn, and Bucky comes with him.

Bucky — maybe he won’t ever remember everything. Maybe there will always be gaps in his memory, gaps with sharp edges that make him wake up gasping in the middle of the night, a fine layer of sweat on his skin and shivering like he can’t stop.

But when it happens Steve can be there; he can take Bucky’s hands between his and talk about his own memories, the ones he’d saved carefully in his head because they were all of Bucky he thought he’d ever have. He talks until the sky starts lighting up and his voice is nearly gone, but he doesn’t stop, keeps talking until he sees Bucky coming back to him.

They take it slow, one day at a time.

———

They haven’t talked about what happened between them at Sam’s, even though Steve keeps thinking about it: when Bucky’s sitting on the sofa, pressed against him from shoulder to hip; the times when Bucky sleeps through the night and they wake up with their hands tangled together anyway.

And then one night they’re getting into bed and Bucky says, “Steve,” hard and low.

Steve looks at him, and his mouth dries out because there’s something in Bucky’s eyes that’s desperate and wanting, and how had he missed that all these days?

“I’m getting real tired of waiting,” Bucky tells him, before he presses Steve down on the bed and kisses him.

Bucky’s teeth are clicking against his and his tongue swipes against Steve’s lower lip; it’s wet and messy, but it’s _Bucky_ and Steve presses himself into it, his hands coming to a rest on Bucky’s lower back.

“I want this,” Bucky says, in gasps between kisses. “I want you and I don’t care if I don’t remember everything, I’m still _me_ —” and he’s hard against Steve’s stomach, his hands at Steve’s hips. “Tell me you do.”

“Bucky,” Steve says, the name wrenched out of his chest. “Yes, yes,” and he’s rolling them over so Bucky’s sprawled out beneath him, tugging at Bucky’s boxers down until Bucky’s cock is free.

“Steve,” Bucky says, short and surprised, before Steve puts his mouth on him. His hip makes an aborted jerk and Steve grins up, licks carefully at the head and then takes the cock into his mouth.

One of Bucky’s hands is resting on Steve’s head and the floor is scraping against his knee, but Steve is focused on the way Bucky’s cock feels warm and heavy in his mouth, the quick pants coming out of between Bucky’s teeth, his unfocused eyes. “Jesus,” he says when Steve starts to suck, “oh my god,” and then Steve sucks harder and Bucky’s words are trailing off into shapeless moans.

Bucky’s hand tightens in his hair and chokes out, “No, stop,” and Steve looks up, stricken.

“Did I—”

“No, don’t worry,” Bucky grins, pulling him upward and kissing him again — and isn’t that something, when Steve’s mouth had been on Bucky’s cock just a moment before. “I don’t want to come before—I want you to fuck me,” he says, and Steve looks at the way Bucky’s lips curve around the word _fuck_ , the bruised wetness of his mouth.

“Okay,” Steve says.

There’s lotion in the bedside table and Steve fumbles for it, spills entirely too much on his hand, and then Bucky’s twisting around to look at him while Steve slips two fingers into the hot tightness of him.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Bucky says, and, “christ, _Steve_ ,” as Steve crooks his fingers.

“Bucky,” Steve says, his voice shaky, because Bucky is beautiful like this and Steve is hard, so hard he’s aching.

“Do it,” he says, “‘m not gonna break, do it, please—”

Steve kisses him again, nipping at his mouth, even as he’s slicking himself up; and when he finally thrusts Bucky’s grinning up at him, urging him forward.

It’s different from before, when they’re looking at each other and Steve can see every expression on Bucky’s face as he moves, can see the way Bucky’s teeth are pressed into his lower lip and the way he pulls at his cock between them. There’s a lump in Steve’s throat, slowly dissolving into something hot and stinging, and Steve has to lower his head, his breath coming out hard from his throat.

“Look at me,” Bucky says, “ _look at me_ , Steve--”

Steve does. Bucky’s eyes are very bright and his mouth is bitten red, and he’s looking at Steve’s face like he’s seeing it for the first time. He keeps his eyes open as he comes; Steve looks at the tremble of his eyelashes like he wants to memorize it, and then drops his head onto Bucky’s shoulder, lets himself go, too.

“You’re the best thing that’s happened to me,” Steve says hoarsely, finding his way back to Bucky’s mouth. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”

Bucky’s stroking his hair, very carefully. “It’s funny,” he says, with a laugh that’s not a laugh at all, “I was just thinking the same thing.”


End file.
